Not sure when the next part arrives… perhaps I’ll manage another one just before Christmas, but maybe not.
Rush Of Blood To The Head, part 7.15.
Viconia leads Jaheira and I to our, more specifically to my room that will quickly become ours… and I must admit that the place is not called The Royal Palace for nothing, the room is decorated so lavishly that it could be mistaken for a treasury. Furniture of the finest mahogany, bedsheets of the finest silks, a tray filled with various dainties placed on the table and a shelf filled with bottles of various elven vines…
“Oh… now this is… nice,” I say, standing at the doorstep and the view that opens before my eyes, brings me a sense of delight.
“Well, I shall leave you then,” Viconia says, “You both have that look in your eyes and I bet that a few moments after I close the door, you’ll be testing the durability of the bed springs.”
“Err… yes,” I smile, “Oh, by the way… Vic, I noticed that my sword was not amongst the equipment. I’d hate to lose that thing, it’s pretty darn useful.”
“I forgot to tell you,” Viconia snaps her fingers, “None of them could touch it, so they left it at the Tree where we gutted the bastard. Some of those idiots got nice burns while trying to lift the sword, hah!”
“I’ll better go and pick it up, while you settle in,” I tell Jaheira as I see Viconia hastily retreating to her own room to join Imoen.
“I will go with you,” Jaheira drops her things in the middle of the room and turns to follow me out. I feel strangely pleased that she does not want to release me from her proximity, not even for a brief moment.
Slowly, we walk through the halls of the palace and see the elves that have survived the carnage, cleaning up the place and decorating it, no doubt in preparation for the coming celebrations. The Tree of Life looks quite different from how we saw it the last time, now it is almost brimming with energy and immediately I feel the strength returning to me and all the exhaustion quickly disappears simply by being in the presence of the Tree. As we near the place where the battle between Irenicus and us was fought, our hands instinctively link and I feel hers squeezing mine encouragingly. The sword lies on the tree branch, the bark still stained in light brownish color of blood… and there are many such spots, not only in the place where Irenicus fell. I bend down to pick up the sword…
“Yeouch!” I scream in pain and drop the sword immediately to look at my palm, skin red and scorched… Jaheira reacts quickly and grabs my arm to cast a healing spell, while I continue to whimper quietly, the pain from the burns of magical fire almost intolerable, but Jaheira’s spell eases the pain quickly.
“What… what the hell happened? I remember Edwin told me that it burns everyone who has a good and pure spirit… how can I qualify amongst those?” I look at her in surprise.
“And how do you not qualify amongst those, beloved?” she looks at me sternly before bending down to look at the sword. She reaches out to touch the sword with her finger and immediately pulls it back and instinctively sticks it in her mouth…
“Peculiar…” she says after a while.
“There’s nothing peculiar about you not being able to touch it,” I say, “You don’t carry tainted blood in your veins… I hope.”
“You know what… I think you could wield it only because you had no soul… nothing to compensate the evil instinct inside you,” she says, after a moment of thinking, “And now that you have your soul back, you cannot touch the sword anymore. You were never a bad person, Theodur do not dare think like that.”
“Err… well, if you say so,” I smile, but something inside me screams out in protest at her words. Though, this time the inner voice is weak, far weaker than before.
“I suppose there is nothing else to do than to leave the sword here…” I muse and she nods in approval. “How about we return to our room, then?” I ask, and this time her approval is accompanied by a broad smile.
Later in the evening, Jaheira is standing at the large shelf, looking over the wine bottles as I lay in the bed, pretending to be snoozing, but actually stealing glances at her nudity as she rummages through the wine supplies. Finally she is satisfied with her choice as she grabs a bottle and two glasses and returns to join me in the bed… and a few moments afterwards a glass filled with exquisite elverquisst is slipped into my hand.
“Mhhhhm… delicious…” I say after tasting the wine, “You know, perhaps we could get used to this idle living after all…”
“It is very strange though, is it not?” she smiles, lifting the glass to her lips, “Imagine that we can sleep peacefully tonight, knowing that tomorrow… well, we have nothing to do - no world to save, nothing. I… I do not remember when I last felt like this.”
“Not since I left Candlekeep, would be my reply, but I suspect that for you it would have been even a much longer period of time… I don’t know what errands you were running before Gorion asked you to come to Friendly Arm,” I reply.
“Ah, but wallowing in memories is pointless… especially, when there are many things that I cannot look upon without feeling a pang of guilt in my heart,” she says, “And you seem to forget that we had some peaceful months after Sarevok…”
“Well… not peaceful nights, Jaheira,” I wink at her, “And… well, you know that it is not the same, compared to now…”
“Yes, I know,” her smile carries a trace of sadness, but it does not linger around for long, “All this was not what I expected, when I was waiting for you in Friendly Arm… how everything suddenly turned upside down… and how hard we had to fight and how much we had to sacrifice, just to be where we are now. But I am looking forward to what the future will bring.”
“Oh, most definitely… and speaking of future… very immediate future…” I stop to lick my lips, “Have I ever told you that your habit of walking around the room completely nude is awfully distracting?”
“No, you have not. I see no practical purpose in covering myself with clothes, while we are alone. I find your habit of wrapping that silly blanket around you, most ridiculous. Besides, it is not like my body holds any surprises to you. Or do you find it unpleasant to look at?” she quirks her eyebrow in a mock chastisement.
“What? NO! Jaheira, why would you ever think that… and don’t tell me that you don’t notice that I stare at you, whenever I have the chance,” I say and she chuckles at my confession, “It is just that the sight of your body is… very… ah, arousing…”
“Oh, is it? And how is that bad?” she grins mischievously.
“Well, it is not bad, but I would not want to create an impression that that is all I am thinking about,” I smile and droplets of wine spurt out of her mouth as she starts to laugh.
“Is that so? And what else besides that, are you thinking about now?” she laughs.
“Err… uh… I mean… that is…” I stammer, making her laugh even harder and she is forced to put the glass back on the table as most of its contents have already spilled out on the sheets. “You see, that’s just it! Your nudity is so distracting that I cannot think of anything else than you!”
“And of whom you should be thinking then, beloved, when we are alone in bed, if not of me?” she asks, “That is how I love you and how I want you to be… but I suppose I could put on a tunic if it unsettles you so greatly…”
“No! I mean… well, there is no need for something as extreme as that…” I chortle, before reaching out and wrapping my arms around her waist and after a brief struggle, pull her close to me, “And you definitely do not need your tunic right now…”
“Mmmph… yes, I see what you mean…” Jaheira manages to speak in between the kisses and the fevered caresses, “But I think that you should try and restrain your urges during the rest of the night, beloved… I know that you have not been able to sleep normally during this last month… you really should be recovering your strength, rather than spending it…”
“And how would you know of my disturbed sleep if you yourself had been sleeping normally?” I stop kissing her neck for a moment to lean back and look in her eyes, “And remember, we have an off day tomorrow, no sword-swinging, no monster-killing… we can safely oversleep in the morning and besides… I think we are both a little too excited to stop now…”
For a response she only pulls me closer and kisses me fiercely, and with every kiss the world surrounding us becomes less and less relevant… until, it once again intrudes on us in a shape of a loud knock on the door and we are forced to disengage from each other, both breathing heavily.
“Stay here, I’ll kill… I mean, I’ll see who it is,” I rise and put a blanket around my waist, before heading to open the doors.
“What took you so long, fool?” the disturber turns out to be Edwin, “Never mind, now that I have your attention, we need to speak about…” Edwin cuts the sentence abrupt as he finally notices that I am wearing nothing but a blanket and even he is not that dumb, that he couldn’t imagine why. Consequently, he rises on the tips of the toes, casually trying to look over my shoulder at the bed where Jaheira lays, quite naked.
“Go away, Edwin,” I say, trying to shut the door, but he slams in his foot to prevent it. “Look, Eddie… unless you want to get punched in the face, you will remove your boot. Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. Goodnight, Edwin.”
“Pah! My matter is of great urgency, your threats are meaningless-” Edwin starts, but he is rudely interrupted…
“Edwin, you will get lost immediately or else I will shove my scimitar up your…” Jaheira yells from the bed, getting increasingly annoyed at the interruption.
“Err… on the second thought, perhaps we better discuss this at the breakfast table (that crazy druid wench is just as fiery and unpredictable as a delayed blast fireball… and I better not be around when she goes off…)” a slightly paler Edwin mutters and quickly retrieves himself from our door.
Still chuckling at his summarization of Jaheira’s temper, I return to the bed and the beauteous creature in it… and said creature looks upon me very impatiently as I join her once again.
“I am freezing,” she says mockingly, making us both laugh, “Now what are you going to do about that?” And we both smile, knowing exactly what…
